‘It’s All Absolutely Fine’ by Ruby Elliot [Book Review]

I researched (long and) hard about whether to include this particular book as part of the 2017 Reading Challenge, given that mental health is a disability “if it has a long-term effect on your normal day-to-day activity”, which is certainly the case for the author of It’s All Absolutely Fine.

Title: It’s All Absolutely Fine
Author: Ruby Elliot
Released: 2016
Pages: 256
Category: #13 A book by or about a person who has a disability
Rating: 3/10

Review:“I know there are places I can go when I’m not okay. These are my safe spaces; my happy corners.”

It’s All Absolutely Fine is a graphic novel, showcasing the author’s personal experiences with mental health issues. It is unapologetically frank, which is refreshing, but it is largely negative and depressing, though there were one or two amusing anecdotes which made me smile.

The illustrations are simplistically crude with very little text, (meaning I did whizz through the pages), but I don’t feel as though I gained anything positive from reading this book.

Given its 4.21 (out of 5) average rating on Goodreads, it seems that the majority of other people who have read this book got something completely different out of it than I did. In that sense I am grateful that the graphic novel exists, as hopefully it has aided other people with potentially similar mental health issues, but unfortunately it simply didn’t appeal to me.

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